


Pardon the Interruption

by chronicAngel



Series: Leaves in the Summer [20]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Awkward Dates, Drabble, F/M, Fluff, POV Third Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 22:02:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13304214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicAngel/pseuds/chronicAngel
Summary: "Does this happen often?"





	Pardon the Interruption

Kurenai laughs into her palm as Asuma spills a bag of chips all over himself, clearly not as proficient at eating them as his student. "How can you possibly be so bad at eating potato chips?"

"I don't eat much junk food," he admits after a second. She finds it oddly hilarious, and extremely ironic, sure that any bonus points he might get in his health for not eating junk food are cancelled out by his cigarettes, which seem to constantly be in his mouth when she's not getting acquainted with it. "I'm gonna go make some soba," he grumbles after a minute when she doesn't stop laughing at him.

She follows him into his small kitchen to grab a bowl, surprised by how well-stocked it actually is, and then focuses on scooping up all of the barbecue flavor chips from the seats of the couch. She's seen Chōji eating the flavor, and with the knowledge that Asuma doesn't eat much junk food she wonders if they weren't a gift of sorts from his student.

She jumps when she hears a surprisingly small knock on the door. Perking up, she hears Asuma ask her to answer it from the kitchen and immediately approaches the shōji, still startled by the more traditional piece of architecture when her own more modern apartment has a simple door, barren of a clan symbol. She slides them open and has to look down to spot a face, a boy who can't be any older than eight standing in front of her.

"Good evening, Yūhi-san," he says, surprisingly formal for a child who still has his baby teeth. She doesn't even have time to respond in surprise before the child lets himself in, maneuvering around her with ease thanks to his small frame, and she spots an overstuffed bag on his back. She follows him as he looks around the house, sliding the shōji shut behind him. He seems to settle on the little kitchen eventually, once again letting himself in and then dropping his bag on the floor and sprinting into Asuma. "Oji-san," he calls, the only warning Asuma has before the kid, apparently his nephew, crashes into his legs and sends the both of them tumbling to the floor.

With a grunt of surprise, Asuma blinks up at the boy, who now sits on his chest grinning. "Konohamaru? What are you doing here?"

Konohamaru pouts at his uncle, as though this is not the response he wanted. "Aren't you happy to see me?" Asuma grunts again and, without saying anything, scoops the kid up and throws him over his shoulder. Kurenai smiles as they both laugh, Asuma making his way to the living room and Konohamaru grinning with a single missing tooth as he hangs over his uncle's shoulder, squirming in a way that seems to her entirely playful. Once he is dropped on the couch, head first, Konohamaru takes a moment to stop laughing and breathe, and then looks at his uncle with the sort of childish adoration she sees new genin squads looking at their sensei with, like when she was first assigned Hinata. "Okā-san and otō-san are on a mission out of the village."

"Again?" Konohamaru nods. Asuma swears under his breath, before nodding. "Alright. I'll set up the guest room."

Kurenai makes it a point to follow him into the back of his small home, though she's reluctant to leave Konohamaru alone in the main room. "Does this happen often?"

Asuma shrugs for a moment, and then looks over his shoulder at her. "Konohamaru is my older brother's son. He was born when I was nineteen." She notes arbitrarily that this makes him eight, even if she knows it doesn't actually matter. Asuma's eyes have gone soft, like they often do when he thinks of how they met or talks about his childhood adventures with his brother, who he always seems to look up to with the same adoration she observed in Konohamaru mere minutes ago.

"But my brother and his wife are both ANBU so they're constantly out of the village," he continues, pulling her out of her thoughts. She remembers her childhood, and when her parents were both on missions, as rare as it was for them to simultaneously be gone, she was often dropped off with her grandparents. As though reading her mind, he says, "With our father being the Hokage, I'm the only one in our family with the time to look after him."

She thinks, not for the first time, that she loves Sarutobi Asuma. It's because he's considerate enough to do things like this, set up his guest room for his eight-year-old nephew even when he shows up unannounced in the middle of a date. She wonders how many times he's had to do this for the kid.

She looks over her shoulder, down the hall to the light of the room that Konohamaru still stands in. There's dirt at the end of his scarf that he's dutifully wiping away, and she wonders the story behind it. It's longer than his whole body, and she can tell from the fading bruises on his forehead that he trips over the thing often, but it's also plainly well-taken care of. After a moment, he unravels it from his neck, folding it more carefully than she's ever seen any eight-year-old fold anything, and gently places it down on the one seat of the couch that doesn't have crumbs from the previously-dumped chips that now fill a bowl. Then, he picks up his bag and comes to the guest room. Without asking, Asuma takes it and pulls out a pillow, which looks as well-loved as the scarf on the couch, and puts it on the bed. He turns and pats Konohamaru's head, grinning.

**Author's Note:**

> That end feels sort of abrupt, but it also felt like the right moment to cut it off at.


End file.
